


Above the Trees

by downtownfishies



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexual Castiel (Supernatural), Episode: s04e10 Heaven and Hell, F/M, M/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28812681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtownfishies/pseuds/downtownfishies
Summary: Dean prays, and Castiel answers, even if Dean himself is not aware of it.
Relationships: Anna Milton/Dean Winchester, Castiel & Anna Milton, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Above the Trees

**Author's Note:**

> This story involves a non-explicit but fairly uncomfortable sexual situation, hence the M rating, just to be safe. I've never rated something M before, isn't this exciting?

Dean calls to Castiel in his sleep.

It takes Castiel by surprise the first time; thousands of years since his existence was known to humans and in those days he was not accustomed to being prayed to, just hearing the damned cry out pointlessly to God as the wrath of Heaven fell upon them.

And he does not think Dean is aware that he does this or at least that Castiel can hear him. Castiel comes to Dean’s bedside the first time, sheer instinct in response to the tug on his grace, only to find Dean tossing and turning in his nightmare, Sam gone off into the night to pursue his demonic vices. Castiel has no instructions for this situation, did not know this would come as a consequence of his involvement in Dean’s life, that despite all outward appearances Dean would begin to have faith—he is supposed to have faith in the plan, in God and Heaven, but instead it has begun to grow inside him for Castiel.

He dispels the nightmare with a touch, because surely it benefits the plan for Dean Winchester to sleep a little easier at night.

It is not the last time.

Dean is difficult to understand and nearly impossible to reason with so Castiel does not risk telling him of these subconscious incidents. He clearly has some notion of personal boundaries at odds with the nature of Castiel’s existence and would not take kindly to any intrusion, even though Castiel’s only intention is to help.

Castiel was not put on this earth to help mortal men, but through the kernel of Dean’s faith in him he finds new purpose. He seeks to become that which Dean believes he already is.

Castiel is aware of Dean’s tryst with Anna because, inexplicably, he is called to be. First he is irritated because he has other things to do than become an unintentional voyeur. Then he is confused—does Dean think angels are interchangeable, that in the midst of his… act… his mind would wander to another? Then in spite of himself he is immersed in it, the intimacy of it, the love. Anna loves Dean. That she has only just met him is irrelevant; she is an angel and this is the one good thing that her father gave her, gave all angels, that they will love mankind. Many of Castiel’s siblings have refined their love into a distant concept or twisted it into something unrecognizable, but Anna was always specific and genuine in her care for humans.

It was, perhaps, why she fell, but before she did, she taught one of her soldiers far better than she ever realized.

Dean tells himself that this is meaningless pleasure-seeking, a last-night-on-earth joyride, but he loves Anna too, or if not her, the idea of her, of someone who knows the stain he feels on his soul but reaches out to him anyway. Of angels as something more than just another army in the war he has been fighting all his life.

Anna, angel in name only, can be more than this simply by being, but the question in Dean’s mind, the thing that called Castiel here:

_Are you? Will you? Can you?_

Even in his human vessel Castiel does not exist on the same plane as these two human bodies and the way that they touch. He is not sure that is what Dean is even asking, but he still has no answer for him, no place in this moment which is truly an intrusion, the moment when Anna touches the mark on Dean’s body and the call comes out from Dean’s soul. Castiel extricates himself from their union.

If he were truly a good soldier he would have gleaned a geographic location from this encounter.

Perhaps this is the first step downward.

The next night Anna is gone from Dean but regained to Castiel, her light rejoined to the host even though she herself is hidden. And Dean, consumed with his guilt and memories, takes a moment before he goes to sleep to pray.

_Anna, wherever the hell you are—or, not hell, you know what I mean, fuck I’m bad at this—stay safe._

Anna chose to fall because she said angels could not truly feel, but then what words are there for what Castiel experiences upon hearing Dean’s first conscious prayer and knowing it is not meant for him? Jealousy and possessiveness and resentment and a thousand things an angel of the Lord should not be. Cannot be. Dean is his, he prayed to Castiel first.

Dean receives no answer to his prayer, but Castiel can imagine Anna’s judgment upon him for listening where he has not been invited.

He leaves, but only finds himself in Dean’s dreams, the knives, the blood, the hellfire. The rage. The fight in the barn, the tire iron in Dean’s hand, striking Alistair over and over. How much Dean hates Alistair, but he hates himself more, for giving in to the violence; he blames himself for every soul he couldn’t save, Anna’s included. He wanted to hurt Alistair but hurts himself more. In these dark dreams all Dean can see are the shades of his own pain. But buried underneath the recriminations and the shame there is a deeper truth. Perhaps only Castiel can see it, but it calls to him, it brought him here.

Castiel, angel of the Lord, at the mercy of a demon until Dean Winchester struck him down.

_For you. To save you. Can you save me?_

**Author's Note:**

> The title is of course from "happiness" by Taylor Swift


End file.
